Atomkraft? Nein, danke! I must have been fourteen when, on the first day of school after the holidays, Laia, a classmate who had spent the summer in Germany, showed up in class with a t-shirt with this slogan printed next to a smiling sun. I remember being impressed and trying my best - unsuccessfully - to get my parents to get me a similar t-shirt.A few years earlier, the oil crisis had turned the world economy upside down, and many countries had begun to consider formulas to increase energy sovereignty and depend less on crude oil producers. The nuclear option seemed obvious almost everywhere, except in Bonn, then the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. The anti-nuclear movement was so powerful in the country that one of the largest European demonstrations against this technology took place precisely in Bonn in 1979.The German anti-nuclear commitment predates the great contemporary climate discourse. And this legacy, which still weighs heavily, has pushed the country to difficult-to-explain decisions: closing nuclear power plants while keeping coal power plants open and while relying on gas as a central energy source in the balance of the German electrical and industrial system. Several calculations have quantified the price of this renunciation at around €700,000 million.The underlying idea is undeniable: the nuclear phase-out has not been free of charge, neither in economic nor in geopolitical terms. Germany, however, has made a monumental investment in renewables, and by 2025 these sources already covered about 56% of gross electricity consumption. But if it had not dismantled its nuclear park, the tensions that German industry has had to face due to its dependence on gas — and especially on Russian gas — would have been much more bearable.The German case can help us understand the Catalan situation. Today, around 57% of the electricity produced in Catalonia comes from the three operational nuclear power plants. It is also known that the country is lagging in renewables: we continue to be far below the weight they already have in other territories of the State, and a relevant part of renewable generation continues to be hydroelectric. The rest of the system still relies, in large part, on fossil technologies.

The debate surrounding nuclear power can create the false impression that it is an obsolete sector, one where progress has stagnated and advancements have stalled. But the reality is far from that image. The nuclear sector is one of the areas where there has been significant interest in innovation for years, particularly after accidents like Fukushima, the advance of climate change, and the apparent slowdown in the renewable energy sector.

The Fukushima fifty, referring to the workers who remained inside the nuclear power plant after the March 2011 tsunami, were actually sixty-nine workers. The round number made for a more attractive headline. Fifteen years after that great catastrophe that caused more than twenty thousand deaths, a documentary pays tribute to that team. They acted convinced that risking their own lives was a debt they owed to the citizens. But the disappointment with Tepco's negligence meant that Japanese society did not perceive them as heroes.

Fifteen years after the Fukushima accident, Europe is once again betting on nuclear energyUntil now, only a few member states—especially France, the European Union's leading nuclear power—had advocated for increased nuclear energy production and investment in the sector. Brussels had remained largely neutral, although in 2022 it yielded to French pressure to include nuclear power as a non-polluting energy source, classifying it almost as green energy. Now, however, the European Commission has fully aligned itself with France and believes that nuclear power must be expanded. "Europe made a strategic error by turning its back on a reliable, economical, and low-emission energy source," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her address at the nuclear energy summit held this Tuesday in Paris. The head of the EU executive and French President Emmanuel Macron have demonstrated their unwavering support for nuclear energy. Macron has called for more investment in the sector, especially now that the international geopolitical context is complex and dependence on hydrocarbons "can be an instrument of pressure and destabilization." The wars in Ukraine and Iran have made the vulnerability and energy dependence of many countries more evident, exposing them to escalating oil and gas prices. Nuclear energy accounts for 10% of the world's electricity production, with some 450 reactors spread across about thirty countries; France alone has 56.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian approved a law on Wednesday that suspends the country's cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), According to Iranian television, the decision to break relations with the IAEA was already approved by Parliament the day after the ceasefire agreed with the United States and Israel, and last week it received the approval of Iran's Guardian Council, but the signature of the president was required.

US President Donald Trump has ordered the country's independent nuclear regulatory commission to reduce regulations and speed up the process of granting new licenses for reactors and power plants. The goal is to reduce the process to eighteen months.

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